A Few Days with ASUS VS239HR Monitor

At work I use a laptop plus an external monitor. Before this there were two monitors lying around: a Lenovo LCD, 22 inches, big white TN panel, completely unbearable. Then the radiology department retired a CRT, a Philips, and it looked surprisingly good — until a few days ago, when that Philips died too.

I thought about it for a long time, whether to buy a screen with my own money for the office. Considering that my idiot director has me writing stuff every day and I spend long hours staring at a computer, at the very least I shouldn’t be blinding myself on a big white panel, so I gritted my teeth and picked up an ASUS VS239HR — 23 inches, IPS, VGA/HDMI/DVI.

It arrived fast. To my surprise it was a perfect panel with no dead pixels, and the backlight bleed wasn’t too bad either — way better than I expected. Some quick impressions below.

1. The stand isn’t very stable, feels cheap, loosens easily. Not a big problem for me though.
2. The screen is plenty bright; I’d suggest turning it down a bit.
3. There’s a button that switches between VGA/HDMI/DVI with one press — exactly what I wanted.
4. Colors are reasonably accurate.

And here’s the result: the three ports on the monitor are connected to the X230, the X250, and the spare desktop below.

I also threw in a pair of earbuds with this order, the Audio-Technica ATH-C550 BK. Reasons below:

A few days ago I bought the Qian 39, so I couldn’t help comparing them. First, the Audio-Technica isn’t as comfortable to wear as the Qian 39, but interestingly the soundstage is a bit wider and the midrange has a little more density. Still, compared to the legendary K314p it sounds muffled. It’ll do for now. I’ve been looking for a flat-head earbud as transparent as the K314p and haven’t found one — guess there’s a reason the K314p became a legend after it was discontinued…